CFOW Weekend Update
March 24th, 2017
Hello Stalwarts – With wall-to-wall chaos in Washington, and one-percent rockets of destruction and greed shooting out all over, what should be the focus Saturday's CFOW vigil? There are so many candidates: impending war against North Korea; the official re-start of the Keystone XL pipeline, the debacle of "TrumpCare" in the House of Representatives, or what?
After lengthy deliberation – the envelope please – tomorrow's vigil will focus on our national healthcare disaster and the opportunities to right these wrongs by expanding "An Improved Medicare" to cover everyone. In other words, "Single-Payer" healthcare. This focus was chosen in part as a result of an excellent meeting of the CFOW Healthcare Committee last night. The committee has been discussing not only the attack on "Obamacare," but also the health and economic advantages of a "Medicare for All" system (a version of which is installed in all other modern, and some not so modern, countries).
While prospects for anything good coming out of Washington are of course slim, there is also legislation pending in Albany that has passed the Assembly and is now in the Senate. Although the political prospects of anything in the Senate are also an uphill fight, the idea of establishing a state-based healthcare insurance systems is gaining ground in many states, especially because of the potential destruction of everything via "Trumpcare."
To learn about how "single payer" or "Improved Medicare for All" works, the best resource is the website of the Physicians for a National Healthcare Program (PNHP), found here. For the New York State version of "single payer" now pending in the state Senate, information from the Campaign for New York Health is also very useful.
Finally, the committee agreed to hold a rally in Hastings on Saturday, April 8th, as part of a nationwide "Day of Action" sponsored by a broad coalition of healthcare organizations. Some people from the CFOW healthcare committee volunteered to help in the organizing of this event, but we can use a few more. If you can join the "Organizing Committee" –which will require some emailing, deep thinking, and one or two short meetings between now and April 8th – please send a return email.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
Coming Attractions
Friday, March 24th – There will be a screening of four short film segments from The Hudson: A River at Risk at the James Harmon Community Center, 44 Main St., starting at 6:30 pm. Filmmaker Jon Bowermaster will lead a community conversation on the proposed and current uses of the Hudson as a fossil fuel conduit, including the barges, pipelines and "bomb trains" along with representatives from Scenic Hudson and Riverkeeper. The event is free.
Friday, March 24th – This morning the US State Department approved the Trans-Canada permit to construct the Keystone XL pipeline. Needless to say, protest will be strong, starting with a rally sponsored by 350NYC from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Trump Hotel (One Central Park West.) For more information go here.
Saturday, March 25th – CFOW weekly protest/vigil in Hastings, at the VFW Plaza (Warbuton and Spring St.) from 12 to 1. This week's vigil will focus on healthcare issues and the need to establish a "single-payer" or "Improved Medicare for All" insurance system. We'll have some signs, but extra credit for bringing your own.
Sunday, March 26th – Hastings RISE ("Racial Inclusion and Social Equality"), a new organization that recently held an important rally in Hastings against "white supremacist" posters targeting young people, will hold its first big meeting at the Hastings library at 1:30 p.m. The goal of the meeting is to start subcommittees and generate action. Childcare provided (please RSVP). You can sign up for their Facebook page here.
Monday, March 27th - This week's "Justice Monday" event in White Plains will focus on County legislation that would give Westchester workers up to 5 days of paid sick leave each year. This legislation is supported by the Transit Workers Union and is sponsored in the County Legislature by Catherine Borgia. This press conference will take place at noon at the County Government Building, 148 Martine Ave.
Saturday, April 8th – CFOW and its new Healthcare Committee will sponsor a rally in Hastings, at the VFW Plaza, in support of "Improved Medicare for All," or "Single-Payer." The rally will begin at 11 a.m. and will feature healthcare experts and political supporters, and will focus on legislation now pending in Albany. More details coming soon.
Sunday, April 9th – The next CFOW monthly meeting will be held at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, for 7 to 9 p.m. Wall-to-wall excitement; don't miss it!
News Notes
One of the justifications for the current wave of anti-BDS legislation, in Westchester and in NY State (and in Congress), is the wave of bomb threats received by Jewish community centers around the world. Now it turns out that this "wave of anti-Semitism" was perpetrated in large part by an Israeli teenager. (Read about it in this article from Haaretz [Israel] and here from The New York Times.) This of course is a tragedy for the disturbed individual allegedly responsible, but it is also underscores the weakness of the case of those like the Westchester County Council who charge the BDS campaign with anti-Semitic violence.
The recent election in Hastings for mayor and two village trustees turned out about 700 votes. This is about twice what might be expected in an uncontested election, based on recent history. Certainly this was in part an endorsement of the incumbent Democrat team; but I also think it reflects an upsurge in our national consciousness about the need for civic responsibility, and "getting involved" in what's going on.
AIPAC, the major pro-Israel lobbying organization in the United States, is meeting this weekend. And on Monday delegates to the convention will flood Capitol Hill to lobby congressional representatives about legislation supposedly favorable to Israel. One of the lobbying items will be additional sanctions against Iran. Westchester congressional representative Eliot Engel is one of the key sponsors of the legislation. For more info and context, go here.
Under the leadership of NY Senator Charles Schumer, the Senate Democrats will boycott a vote on Supreme Court nominee Judge Gorsuch until the FBI investigation of Trump's and his team's ties to various Russians. For more on this, watch Democracy Now!'s coverage of the Gorsuch's confirmation hearing.
Some Good/Useful Weekend Reading
This Is What's Really Behind North Korea's Nuclear Provocations
By Bruce Cumings, The Nation [March 23, 2017]
---- Even more infuriating is Washington's implacable refusal ever to investigate our 72-year history of conflict with the North; all of our media appear to live in an eternal present, with each new crisis treated as sui generis. Visiting Seoul in March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asserted that North Korea has a history of violating one agreement after another; in fact, President Bill Clinton got it to freeze its plutonium production for eight years (1994–2002) and, in October 2000, had indirectly worked out a deal to buy all of its medium- and long-range missiles. Clinton also signed an agreement with Gen. Jo Myong-rok stating that henceforth, neither country would bear "hostile intent" toward the other. The Bush administration promptly ignored both agreements and set out to destroy the 1994 freeze. Bush's invasion of Iraq is rightly seen as a world-historical catastrophe, but next in line would be placing North Korea in his "axis of evil" and, in September 2002, announcing his "preemptive" doctrine directed at Iraq and North Korea, among others. The simple fact is that Pyongyang would have no nuclear weapons if Clinton's agreements had been sustained. [Read More]
A Frontline Nurse for the Vietcong
By Tong Thi Xuyen, New York Times [March 21, 2017]
[FB – Those moved by this short memoir might also want to read "Last Night I Dreamed of Peace," one of the best accounts I know of about the war from the Vietnamese perspective. The book is the diary of a nurse, Dang Thuy Tram, who was with the North Vietnamese forces in the South, and was killed in 1970. Her story, as well as the story of how her diary was found and eventually returned to her family, is extraordinary. The book is in the WLS.]
---- For many in Vietnam, memories of what took place remain vivid. I recently visited Nguyen Thi Do, a former nurse with the National Liberation Front, also known as the Vietcong. After 10 years of wartime service, Ms. Do moved to Qui Nhon, a beachfront city in her home province on Vietnam's Central Coast, where she helped administer a fishing company until retiring in 1989. She invited me into her living room with its stylish wooden furnishings, poured two cups of green tea, and shared her story. [Read More]
The Bipartisan Effort against Campaigns for Corporate Responsibility [BDS]
By Stephen Zunes, The Progressive [March 23, 2017]
---- The Trump Administration's efforts to legitimize the Israeli occupation and illegal settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories has received surprising bipartisan support. A series of bills passed or under consideration in Washington and in state capitols seeks to punish companies, religious denominations, academic associations, and other entities which support the use of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to challenge the occupation of Palestinian land. … While most of the BDS efforts on college campuses and within religious denominations have focused primarily on U.S.-based companies which directly support Israel's repressive occupation and colonization efforts in the West Bank, the formal BDS call by Palestinian civil society groups also supports academic, commercial and other forms of boycotts and sanctions of Israel itself. However, a number of the recent anti-BDS legislative initiatives in the United States, have also failed to distinguish between the two by legally defining Israel as including the occupied territories and illegal settlements. [Read More]
